


Skies Wide Open

by VanLudwig



Series: The House of the Serpent [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet, M/M, aftermath of the war angst, but its me so thats never my intent, could be gen if you want, minor spoilers for the Battle of Hogwarts, post-war angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 12:50:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17488361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanLudwig/pseuds/VanLudwig
Summary: Draco Malfoy stood on a ruined bridge, surveying the damage done to the castle in the aftermath of what he felt a certain confidence in labeling the worst night of his entire life. He ran his hand along a crumbled wall, watching bits of cement tumble over the edge and turn to dust in the air. The war was over. That, at least, was good.





	Skies Wide Open

It was somewhere around five in the morning. Mist rolled in from the hills beyond the Forbidden Forest, the curling tendrils of condensation like smoke creeping around trees and over gnarled roots. A thick curtain of fog hung in the air, diluting the black of the sky to a dull gray as the line between night and day began to blur around the carnage, the wreckage that was once called the Hogwarts grounds. Haunted survivors were still dragging those less fortunate from the rubble, still picking over the ruins of the once-impenetrable fortress for any last signs of life. They would be at it for hours, perhaps even days before every man, woman, and child was accounted for. The cool morning air felt saturated with dew and ash, the breeze unmoving. The castle, reverent in its stillness, sagged with the weight of the tragedy that had taken place in and around its borders. The forest in the distance was silent as a grave. Death and sulfur wrapped around his body like a cloak, the remnants of curses burned the air that dragged through his lungs, laborious and slow.

Draco Malfoy stood on a ruined bridge, surveying the damage done to the castle in the aftermath of what he felt a certain confidence in labeling the worst night of his entire life. He ran his hand along a crumbled wall, watching bits of cement tumble over the edge and turn to dust in the air. The war was over. That, at least, was good. 

Draco looked down at the torn fabric of the sleeve of his suit, at the ugly, ornate carving marring the tender flesh of his inner arm. Blue veins disappeared under black ink that slithered and twisted like a living adder beneath his skin. Still it writhed, even now that its master was dead, was nothing more than a painful memory, a subject spoken of in the the past tense, another body to add to the count. The war was over, but what would happen now? 

When the dust had still been settling, Draco’s father and mother had helped identify bodies in the Great Hall, bodies of Death Eaters that had no right to have crossed the threshold of Hogwarts even in death, had fought so hard to enslave Mudbloods, destroy lives for sheer idealism, murder children, but here they were, the same as anyone. Death was the great equalizer, or so some said. Draco would have sooner tossed the bodies of the Dark Lord’s servants into the moat. Regardless, the senior Malfoys had done what little they could, had spoken to McGonagall, had told her everything. And so had he. That was all any of them had ended up being good for, in the end. Betrayal.

Draco shuddered. War reparations, that’s what it would be. His family would buy their freedom, buy their position in the world, same as always, but the price would be too steep for them to recover this time around. Though technically Draco’s father had not fought for the Death Eaters, having no actual wand to fight with, he had been one of Voldemort’s inner circle. Though the Malfoys were all traitors to the Dark Lord in the end, had all failed him each in their own ways, they nonetheless bore the Mark. Though Narcissa Malfoy, Draco’s sainted mother, had lied to Voldemort’s face, had told him the curse had worked - though she had spared the life of the Chosen One - it would spare her from nothing. Draco knew that. Likely, Narcissa knew it, too. Though the Noble House of Malfoy had become traitors to the Dark Lord, that would not matter to the parents of dead children, to the brand new war orphans that wanted blood, anyone’s blood, so long as it was pureblood. The Malfoys had lived in disgrace amongst the Death Eaters, and they would live in disgrace now, too. 

Tears pricked the corners of Draco’s eyes, and he felt in his self-loathing heart that he had no right to them. The air smoldered yet with the ashes of a monument they’d said would never burn, the dust and the rubble lay thick over the shaken, broken foundations of Hogwarts. Survivors walked numbly below, no one speaking, only observing the dawning of this sacred morning, the first day in a world without the Dark Lord. Draco Malfoy looked down and saw this through tortured eyes. It was a day without the Dark Lord, yes, and also a day without Vincent Crabbe, without Lavender Brown, without Severus Snape. The future was an impossibility, the past too near to be considered truly over. 

Slow, measured footsteps approached Draco from behind. He knew who it was. He wished he would throw him from the bridge.

Potter stood at Draco’s side, saying nothing for a long moment. Draco glanced over, observed the relaxed tilt in his posture, the set of his shoulders speaking of a weary yet resolute countenance. Like Hogwarts, Potter was wounded but, ultimately, whole. Draco longed to say the same of himself. 

“You’ll be fine.”

Draco would have dearly loved to laugh, but he feared he had lost the capability.

Potter looked back at him now. “You will. You will live, Malfoy. We’ll both live.”

“That’s your specialty, not mine.” Draco heard himself say the joke as if observing the moment through a Pensieve. 

“We’re both alive right now. We’ve both survived something we shouldn’t have. That’s something.”

Draco rounded his shoulders. “I daresay I will not be celebrated for doing so.”

Potter shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he did. The move would have been disarming in its casualness if Draco hadn’t already laid down his arms hours ago. 

“I’m glad you’re alive.”

The way Potter said it, like he’d simply been observing the weather, kept Draco from truly processing the meaning of the words for a full five seconds. Five seconds of silence where Draco looked down at a girl below the bridge and presumably - hopefully - her mother embracing in front of an enormous crater, the chilling remains of a powerful curse. Five seconds of silence, and then Draco whirled on Potter, brain finally caught up. “You’re glad I’m alive?” Draco repeated the words scornfully. “I led Death Eaters into your home, attempted to murder your friends, succeeded in murdering your man Dumbledore.” He listed these actions derisively, unable to accurately separate his rage at Potter and his anger with himself. “Why in Salazar’s good name would you be pleased about my continued ability to walk about and ruin everything you love?”

Potter, damn him to hell, was smiling. “You didn’t murder Albus Dumbledore.”

Draco felt stricken. 

Potter continued smiling. “I don’t know what you want from me, Malfoy. I’m really quite done with the enemies thing now. I’ve just gotten rid of one, y’see, and I don’t think I care to have any more.”

“Reasonable, I suppose.” Draco sniffed and resisted the urge to wipe his face with his sleeve. “Be that as it may, Potter, though you may be glad for my continued life, rest assured I am not.”

Potter sighed. “So many people are dead, Draco. Be grateful you’re not.”

“Why? Why would I relish the ability to live the rest of my miserable life?” He balled his hands at his sides, staring angrily out at the distant forest. “I’ve got little to live for. I’m a war criminal.”

Potter was silent. Draco’s anger cooled as quickly as it had come, and then he became uncomfortable at the resonance of his final words. “I mean to say that the Ministry is going to ruin my family. We’ve survived this battle, but a new political war is on the horizon for those of us on the wrong side that didn’t have the good sense to die tonight.”

“That won’t happen,” Potter argued quickly, “I won’t allow it.”

“Potter, the Great Hall is full of dead children. Whatever you think you’re going to stop, you won’t.”

“I’ll protect you.”

“You’re a madman,” Draco accused, “You’ll protect me?”

“Your mother saved my life.”

“One good deed will not erase years of bad ones.”

“No, it won’t. But it might save you from the fate you think is inevitable.” Potter reached out then. He reached his arm across Draco’s shoulders and pulled him to his side. His hand clasped Draco’s shoulder and gently squeezed. And for the briefest of moments, Draco allowed himself to do something he’d never done in his entire life. He believed in Harry Potter. 

The moment passed eventually, though the feeling certainly did not, and Potter’s arm dropped. Potter then stuffed his hands into his pockets and moved away, forward towards the edge of the ruined bridge. 

“So,” Draco said, clipped, wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers, “What’s next for the Great Harry Potter, then?”

Potter put a foot onto the crumbling wall of the bridge - a place where the stone had been blasted down to mid-height - and for a moment Draco thought he was going to jump, but he didn’t, and Draco was left dealing with the knowledge that he hadn’t merely thought it, but rather, he’d been afraid of it. 

“Does there always have to be a next?” Potter asked. 

“Quite right. I suppose I haven’t got one. Bit selfish to demand one from you.”

“Wouldn’t it be great if literally anything you did was enough?” Potter continued as if he hadn’t heard, “I know you’re only asking to be a git, and I appreciate that, honestly I do, because everyone is going to be asking that of me from now on. And whereas you’re doing it on purpose to be a git, everyone else is going to be doing it because they care. And I hate to disappoint them, but I mean, let a guy live, yeah? I survived a war. Let me live.”

Draco had no idea what to say, not really. He thought of a few things he could theoretically say, of course, because he wouldn’t be Draco Malfoy if he hadn’t thought of at least three sarcastic remarks to fire back at Potter. But he didn’t say them because this wasn’t their normal repartee. This wasn’t Potter and Malfoy, legendary boyhood rivalry and fantastic form of Great Hall dinnertime entertainment. This was the dawn after a night spent in hell, the eve of a new era carved from stone in blood, and if the Hero of the Wizarding World needed to vent a few things, well, Draco would grant him this one, brief reprieve. 

“Go on,” Draco said. 

Potter turned, regarding Draco. “I never thought you were bad, Malfoy. I mean, not really. I think there’s a difference between doing bad things and being bad, don’t you?”

“I daresay I’ve never thought about it before,” Draco admitted, “I have never contemplated my theoretical villany.” That wasn’t exactly true. The past few months, he had laid awake in bed near every night mulling over the exact subject. But it didn’t seem like the thing to say, considering Potter might actually then press him for opinions, insights, and for once in his life Draco did not want to talk about himself.

“And I know I’ve done some bad things, too, but I never thought I was a bad person.”

Draco scoffed.

Potter arched a brow. 

Draco mustered the grace to look sheepish. “Apologies, Potter. It’s just altogether wild to me that you would consider your actions anything less than saintly.”

“You know they aren’t.”

“Well, of course,” Draco said with a small shrug, “That’s always been my job, to point out how you’re not nearly as good as you believe you are. I just never thought you actually knew it.”

“And while it was damned annoying pretty much all the time - outright infuriating, actually - it’s something I realized I value.” Potter was drawing closer now, coming back from the bridge’s edge, towards Draco, “You were always trying to tarnish my reputation, trying to cut me down to size.”

“Well, I hope it wasn’t all bad.”

“Oh, no, it pretty much was.”

Draco shrunk back.

“Point being, you never expected the impossible of me. When I was given insurmountable tasks, you never thought I’d be able to do it, unlike so many other people who did. And, I don’t know, there’s something really nice about that.” 

Potter put his hands back in his pockets.

Draco arched an eyebrow. “You know, that’s actually quite screwed up, Scarhead.”

“It is what it is.”

Though it had nearly always been the case throughout their entire childhood and adolescence together, Draco took note in that moment that he was quite a bit taller than Potter. He was standing near enough that Draco had to tilt his chin down a bit to look Potter in the eye. Potter’s chin was up, regarding him with a serene, somewhat defiant smile. As he had been many times in the past, Draco was struck by how handsome Potter had become in young adulthood. Wide jaw, the barest hint of a cheekbone stretching the tanned, clear skin of his face. A light stubble that looked lazily maintained and all the better for it framed full lips and a strong, prominent nose that had always struck Draco as fitting - given how often he stuck it into his own business. His leather jacket fit him well, hugging the curve of his upper biceps and cutting in at the waist to reveal quite a masculine contrast with the breadth of his shoulders. 

Draco swallowed inaudibly, trying to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. He rolled his shoulders back, attempting to loosen up some of the tension that had built up. “Potter, do you think,-”

His sentence was cut-off by a loud cry below them - a high-pitched “Harry!!” - the tone matching the dozens of others Draco knew would haunt him for years to come. It was a searching yell, someone calling out to a loved one who may not respond. The person repeated their cry, sounding a bit more questioning than the last, a bit quieter, and then called a third time, louder. 

“Do people not know you’re alive?” Draco questioned, incredulous. 

Potter had turned his head towards the sound of the noise, but he hadn’t yet responded. “No, I’ve been making appearances all morning.” He sounded mournful, almost regretful. “Malfoy,” he turned back towards him, “I know this is going to sound like a massive understatement and also possibly quite hilarious, in context, but I am so tired right now.” 

“I would imagine. None of us have slept yet.”

“I’m tired of people looking at me, I mean. I’m tired of making speeches to people, tired of giving comfort.” His eyes were a bit wild, and they couldn’t seem to settle on any one point of focus. Potter looked into Draco’s eyes, and then everywhere else, darting around as if searching for something he misplaced. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. “I know I have to. I have to give these people what they need. It’s just, what they need is me, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep up this appearance for them, keep giving myself up to them like that.” Green eyes landed once again on Draco’s own. “I’m so tired, Malfoy.”

Draco knew what Potter needed. The people needed Potter, but Potter needed him. 

Draco stepped forward, arms out, and he wrapped them around Potter and pulled him into his body. He was solid and warm, but he was also shaking, just a little. Draco pressed closer, so there would be nowhere on Potter that he didn’t touch, resting first his chin atop Potter’s head and then his cheek, bringing a hand up to brace against the back of his neck. It was how Blaise had held him the night he’d gotten his mark, using his body to hold him together for fear he would otherwise collapse. The arm around Potter’s back held him tightly, a reassuring pressure. Potter responded instantly, his arms wrapping around Draco’s middle and holding on like he might fall otherwise. His head came to rest in the space between Draco’s clavicle and his neck, his warm, labored breath tickling across Draco’s sensitive skin. The entire world ceased to exist in that moment, save for them. Draco’s mind was quiet. He focused solely on the sound of Potter’s breathing and the resonance of his heartbeat. 

The moment passed unbroken between them. Eventually, Potter pulled away from the embrace, and Draco could see there were tears in his eyes. He said nothing, and Draco couldn’t think of a single intelligent thing to say, so he said nothing, as well. Another moment passed where they simply looked at each other, and Draco knew the picture of Potter looking up at him like that would be with him forever. 

Eventually, Potter broke the silence. “I have to go,” he said. 

Draco felt a sharp twinge of regret, sudden and profound, and he knew if he didn’t say anything right there and then, he would surely be adding one more to the already insurmountable pile of his life’s regrets. “Potter, erm,” he began clumsily, stumbling on emotions long buried, “I’m glad you’re alive, too.” 

Potter regarded him, his green eyes sparkling with some playful emotion not yet stifled by the toll his own life had taken on him. He reached out and touched Draco’s arm, just above the elbow. Though they had only finished a lengthy embrace, the touch was electrifying, kindling something within Draco that felt like hope and like love. “Thanks,” he said simply, then, “I’ll see you down there.” 

And then he turned and walked away. Draco watched him disappear out of sight, headed once more towards the castle. His gaze lingered on Potter’s back and then in the space where he had been for a good length of time. 

He approached the ledge of the bridge, placing his hands on the stone to help him balance as he leaned his head out over the side. The ground was dizzyingly far below him. The woman and her child had gone. All that remained was the crater. Draco wondered whose spell had caused it and who had it been aimed for. Did he know either of them? Did he know both, perhaps? A breeze, coming from the direction of the forest, picked up the loose hair of his fringe and danced it about his face. He looked towards the forest then back down to the ground far, far below. 

Gingerly, he placed his foot where Potter’s had been, on a broken bit of wall, and stepped up onto it. He held his arms out to steady himself briefly before dropping them to his sides. The sun had just begun to rise, casting the scene in a faint, orange glow as the sky became just a bit lighter, just a bit more colorful. Draco looked into the light through squinting eyes. Balancing as he was on the crumbling rock, the breeze seemed stronger to him now. He imagined the wind knocking him over, sending him tumbling over the wall to meet the same fate as so many others had on the grounds tonight. It would be as easy as letting go, not much effort at all. 

It wouldn’t be, though. Perhaps a bit earlier, yes, but not anymore. Things had changed, not by much, but enough. Draco thought again of Potter, of the look on his face right when they had separated. He had seemed so sad, so lonely, even when he’d left to rejoin the others. Draco thought of Potter’s breath on his neck, his hands around his waist, and his heartbeat against his chest. 

Draco thought of Potter, and he stepped down.


End file.
